The
family of slain American-Israeli soldier Max Steinberg visited the
Western Wall for the first time Sunday night since arriving in Israel to bury
their son.

Evie and
Stuart Steinberg, and their remaining son and daughter, Jake and Paige, who
arrived last week for the funeral of St.-Sgt. Steinberg, 24, a southern
California native killed in Gaza in an attack on the armored personnel carrier
in which he was riding, were accompanied by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and
his wife.

The war in Gaza is naturally being covered in the U.S. But this
past week, with two soldiers who grew up in the U.S. -- Staff Sgt. Nissim Sean Carmeli and
Sgt. Max Steinberg -- killed in battle, the coverage has taken on a different
light: excited, focused on the lone soldiers.

You
can dislike Israel. You can oppose Zionism. You can feel no sadness or sympathy
whatsoever for Max Steinberg - the American-Israeli soldier killed by Hamas
fighters in Operation Protective Edge - and whose funeral drew 30,000
mourners on Wednesday.

But
reacting to his death by blaming Birthright, the organization that funded and
operates free 10-day trips to Israel for young Jewish adults is simply
ridiculous.

I
have long been used to Israelis knowing nothing about American Jews who come to
live in Israel. I am less used to American Jews not knowing the first thing about
them, but drawing extensive conclusions nonetheless.

The
unity of purpose in American Jewish ranks encourages and inspires but, as is
always the case, will not last forever. When a lasting ceasefire is eventually
accepted and the fighting in Gaza stops, Israel will go back—as it should—to
the healthy give-and-take of normal political life, and the division between
the two major political camps will reassert itself.

An
IDF officer involved in military operations inside the Gaza Strip was attacked
by haredi extremists on Monday while on temporary leave in Beit Shemesh.

Yesh Atid MK Dov Lipman:

“While
I applaud the condemnation of the attack from haredi leaders and I
know that only small numbers of extremists would ever attack soldiers, I don’t
think the haredi political and rabbinic leaders can claim complete
innocence,” Lipman said.

“Their
non-stop incitement against the government and the suggestion that haredim should
serve in the army plays a role here,” he continued.

"Avichai Rontzki from Itamar,
a former IDF chief rabbi ... delivered a messianic, fiery speech,
which to me and many of my friends seemed strange and incomprehensible. He
praised the miracle of God's army, an army in which my comrades and I did not
know we were serving.

… When
they brought us back out, we just wanted to eat, shower, sleep and call home,
mom and dad. We got close to Kibbutz Nahal Oz and then they gathered
us together. You know how it is in the army - when told to gather, you gather.
Waiting for us was a bunch of Breslev Hasidic Jews singing 'Messiah,
Messiah', dancing and bouncing around. We formed a circle around them, and a
bunch of fighters danced with them in ecstasy."

Deputy
Minister for Religious Services Ben-Dahan informed the committee that
more than 6,500 farmers in Israel have or are receiving guidance, advice and
assistance for choosing one of the options available to them during the shmita year.

This
includes switching to hydroponics agriculture for the year, a method of growing
produce in water without soil, which is permitted during shmita; the heter mechira solution;
the Rabbinical Store House solution in which representatives of the rabbinical
courts act as the consumer’s agent without the direct input of the farmer; or
for the farmers to simply take a full, state-subsidized sabbatical.

Tens of thousands of mourners paid their final respects to
Sgt. Max Steinberg, the slain IDF soldier who was laid to rest on
Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem on Wednesday.

Steinberg, the Los Angeles native who immigrated
to Israel and enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces as a lone soldier, was
among the 13 soldiers killed in the Gaza Strip on Sunday. Twenty-nine Israeli troops
have been killed since the army launched its ground incursion into Gaza last
week.

The foremost religious arbiter in the ultra-Orthodox
Sephardic Shas movement raised eyebrows on Wednesday when during a special
prayer held at Jerusalem’s Western Wall for IDF soldiers, he remarked that
“Israel doesn’t need an army.”

Shalom Norman, CEO, Triguboff Foundation: “Absorption
of this population has been a great success socially, most immigrants define
themselves as Jews and feel part of the collective.

At the same time, there has
been an institutional failure on the part of the rabbinic system and the
Ministry of Interior, in the regulation of the formal status of these
immigrants, who expect the government to regulate their status. ”

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin: “Sometimes conversion courts
make converts endure the torments of hell, for no reason.”

Love the stranger”
is not always their guiding motto. Community rabbis must be involved in
conversion, and it was a grave error to remove the matter from their
jurisdiction- for they are the ones who must welcome and assist the converts in
their communities. ”

Just as we sat down for some coffee, a Code Red alarm
sounded; I was startled, but R was undeterred. “I don’t care about being
injured by shrapnel, about a wall falling on me,” she said. “Today I will
receive my get.”

Modern societies take for granted that one loves freely and
stops loving freely. Yet, as the remarkable movie by Shlomi & Ronit Elkabetz suggests,
that freedom is denied to women in modern Israel by the rabbinical tribunals.

The Tel Aviv municipality will convene in two weeks to
discuss a new version of a bylaw allowing supermarkets and kiosks to open on
Shabbat.

An earlier attempt at such a bylaw was vetoed by
Interior Minister Gideon Sa’ar a month ago. The municipality hopes
the new version will meet his approval, but since it would still allow a large
number of stores to open all over the city, it’s not clear that the changes
will overcome Sa’ar objections.

A bill proposed by Hatnua MK Elazar Stern
and approved by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation to allow restaurants
open on Shabbat to obtain a kashrut license has been blocked by the Bayit Yehudi
party.

In yet another blow to relations between the religious
establishment in Israel and the Diaspora, the Chief Rabbinate recently rejected
the validity of a divorce certificate issued by a highly respected Orthodox
rabbinical court in Western Europe.

The case involves a man who divorced some
years ago in his country of origin in Europe, which cannot be specified at this
time, and he is scheduled to re-marry in August in Israel.

“Our coming does not
depend on the war, but [is] because of our children,” added Eric Azizi, a
newcomer from Paris who arrived with his wife and three kids. “Even if Israel
is burning, we will be there.”

If Rabbi Perl
can demonstrate the sincerity of his apology, by implementing this tolerant
agenda, he will bring much needed moderation to the Religious Zionist community
thereby preventing future bloodshed. If he cannot, he must resign immediately.

I believed thatRavNoam Perl ought to take
responsibility and resign his position asMazkir.
Notwithstanding my own view, and after a three hour debate, it became clear
that the consensus around the world is thatRavNoam’s apology was heartfelt
and that he should lead the movement to rehabilitate it from the significant
damage that has been done.

A tentative agreement has been made between MKElazarStern and Deputy Religious
Services Minister Eli Ben-Dahanin which a controversial bill proposed by
Stern to reform the conversion process will be withdrawn while the principle of
the legislation will be enacted by government order.

… Other details of the government order, which
were contested during negotiations on the proposed bill, are yet to be fully
agreed upon.

These include
the question of what qualifications the other two members of local conversion
courts will need, aside from the municipal chief rabbi, and whether
registration will be available only on a regional basis according to the
candidate’s place of residence or nationally in any of the new local courts
that are established.

Two couples in Beersheba finished their
conversion to Judaism and were married by Deputy Religious Services Minister
Eli Ben-Dahanon Thursday, despite the city coming under
rocket fire during the ceremony.

Having seemingly agreed upon a solution to his
contentious conversion bill,HatnuaMKElazarStern had another
controversial bill approved by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation on
Monday, which will allow restaurants to receive a rabbinate kashrut license and stay
open on Shabbat.

The current law
governing kashrut licensing states that the rabbi issuing a rabbinate kashrut
license may only take into account the laws of kashrut, but in practice he will
not do so if the establishment is open on Shabbat.

We need to go back to the drawing board,
expand the scope of discussion in Tel Aviv and elsewhere and involve both
workers’ unions and business owners’ unions in this discussion. Shabbat should
not be a launching point for unfair business competition, nor threaten the
livelihood and quality of life of small business owners.

It should not conflict
with the importance of a weekly day of rest for most workers and safeguarding
the right to employment of Shabbat observers.

These and other considerations
call for a new model, different from both the “status quo” and the current
“facts on the ground”.

It should provide access to convenience stores which
offer basic food staples in relevant neighborhoods, without giving undue
advantage to the large chains over small family owned and operated stores.

The director of theHiddushreligious freedom lobbying
group, Reform Rabbi UriRegev, also weighed in, saying that Winter had
involved religion in military affairs and that his superior officers should
remind him of the required separation between the two.

The only thing the government can do is
suggest thatChareidiyeshiva students go for basic training and
buildyeshivotin the army. The students would have to walk
around in uniform and learn full time, learn with other soldiers, do community
service, or something similar.

… Still, the greatest mistake was not
made by the government but by theChareidileadership. When it organized a demonstration
in which nearly 600,000 black-hatted yeshiva students participated to show
their love for Torah, one could hear a pin drop just before the crowd burst out
in an unprecedented cry ofShemaYisrael.

That was the perfect opportunity to prove
their love for our brave soldiers and all of Israeli society by having all
600,000 men and women recite prayers for the welfare of the soldiers and all
Jews in Israel.

The fact that the present Israeli Chief
Rabbinate does not recognize our learning toward semicha and that of our musmachot, graduates, toward dayanut, impacts on our ability to
serve communities and institutions in various capacities.

The impediments are social
and political rather thanhalakhic. The forward vision ofRabbi Riskinand of the Women’s
Institute forHalakhicLeadership to train women for positions that
don’t yet exist is a testimony to the power of dreams.

The passion, commitment,
and deep religiosity of the women and the inexorable forces of rapid social
change promise to combine in furthering the realization of that dream.